Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The dirty little secret

The dirty little secret of advocacy is that a handwritten letter to an official is worth 10, maybe 50 petition signatures. The reason? Signing a petition is easy, takes a second, they'll probably even hand you a pen.
Writing a letter is harder- you have to pick out a card, you have to find a pen, and an envelope and a stamp- more importantly you have to have to figure out what to say.

i've written and re-written this post many times- I don't want to be preachy, but I feel so strongly about this, and I long to spur any of you from the Boston area into action.

So I'm going to just publish the letter I wrote to the Mass DOT administrator on the subject of the Longfellow bridge. I urge you to find the time to write your own. I feel strongly that option B (see here or here for explanations is the best long term. It gives us the most options and avoids a lousy "pinch point" situation for pedestrians at the Boston side.

I know it's a busy time of year, but please, consider taking the 15 minutes to write:

Luisa Paiewonsky

Administrator, MassDOT Highway Division

Ten Park Plaza, Suite 3170

Boston, MA 02116

To "sweeten" the deal, if you're in Boston: send me photos of your stamped addressed letter, and contact me offline at Bikinginheels@yahoo.com, and I'll throw in a prize. It will involve chocolate. Never say I'm above a little bribery in the service of a good cause.